


everything is falling from the sky in pieces

by brahe



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Psychological Torture, Angst, Coda, Episode tag: s01 e05 Fail-Safe, Gen, Guilt, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, I think that's about it, Imagined Character Death, Psychic Bond, Psychological Torture, Rescue, Russians, Survivor Guilt, i definitely made up a different medbay cuz the one in the show is a lil weird, shared emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-22 11:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10696371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brahe/pseuds/brahe
Summary: Hallucinagins are powerful things. Fascinating, really, from scientific and philosophic and psychologic points of view. The ability to take a human mind, to read it and know it, to create visions from thoughts.And then, as a weapon, to torture a mind, unique, personalized horrors dragged from the deepest corners of a psyche and into staggering, blinding, painful light.Martin Stein has a lot of horrors.Or,An expanded scene from when Martin's stuck with the Soviets and they try a special kind of torture.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> alright yall it's 1:30am and I started this like an hour and a half ago bc firestorm got me so wrecked and I've only seen up to ep15 of season one but I felt like this scene was missing? Like she talks about this drug and then nothing happens? Idk. So I wrote a thing. First thing for this fandom so pls be nice 
> 
> Warning for drugging people, hallucinations, imaging people dying, not knowing its a hallucination, guilt, and the associated things. 
> 
> Not beta read
> 
> Title from explosions by ellie goulding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Martin's POV of events, including hallucinations and strong feelings, bc this man just feels so much and he just wants to keep everyone safe ugh sos I have emotions

A deep kind of dread had settled into his bones when the Russian turned around.

 

"This toxin isn't lethal," she had said, and a memory of her earlier comment about preserving his mind made itself known.

 

Intellect preservation, such a funny thing to worry about in a time like this. Martin had watched her with mounting apprehension, no space in him to worry about what Jefferson was feeling in response to this. 

 

"But it will make you wish it was," she finished, a sick and twisted kind of smile. He's still half impressed with himself for not letting on to her in even the slightest the depths to which his fear ran. Not fear for himself, not really. He'd lived already, as he kept saying; he'd done his work here, and everything after that was just a bonus. But the rest of the people, the ones used in these poor imitations, the people in this country who would suffer, the people of the different, burned future this could create, fear for their sakes ran deep in his veins.

 

And Jefferson. Oh, God, fear for Jefferson was such a part of his every _breath_ , but this was a hot, fresh fear, that if they ever _knew,_ if they ever got a hold of him... Martin carries a lot of fear, but none so strong as for his other half.

 

 

And so now, he watches his reality fade away, and he knows what's in store for himself. He's aware of the monsters in his closets and the beasts he keeps so carefully under lock and key. Only now, the cages are breaking, shattering around him, in slow motion and all at once, whiplash and slow drowning simultaneously.

 

The first vision to haunt him is Clarissa. God, he loves her more than he ever thought he could, loves her with his entire being, in every lifetime. He looks down to red hands, turning an ugly shade of brown as blood that doesn't belong to him begins to dry. He looks further down, to the body he's kneeling beside, the body laid out on the floor before him. Watches in horror the slow, ragged movement of a chest fighting a losing fight for air.

 

"Clarissa," he says, chokes, vision blurring and hands shaking, chest constricting as if his ribs were trying to strangle his lungs and crush his heart. It's heartbreak in its most violent form.

 

His wife only looks back at him with vacant eyes, says nothing. He's beginning to lose his focus, beginning to forget that this is the twisted film of the wicked drugs coursing under his skin, and he stares at her, going over every line of her face and trying to burn the color of her eyes into his mind. He's frozen, though, unable to do anything but stare back and choke on air and pain and tears that won't come, until she flickers before him, fading out into nothing but a diamond nestled in a golden band, falling to the floor with a clatter that's deafening.

 

And when he looks up to the sky in the way the desperate, destroyed, depressed do, he sees Ronald on fire. The Burning Man in truest form, brighter and hotter that the local sun ever could be. It's shock that gives him the burst of energy that gets him to his feet, but he's stuck on the ground, stuck looking up at a man on fire.

 

"I'm sorry," he says, tries to yell. Ronald makes no motion that he's heard Martin. "I'm so, so sorry. I never - I never _wanted_ this."

 

"Yes you did," Ronald says, though it sounds like he's standing beside Martin, not blazing in the sky above him. "You _always_ wanted this. Power. Fame. A name for yourself."

 

Martin shakes his head, need to reach Ronald clawing at him from the inside. A part of him recalls this scene, parts of these emotions, rings a faint and distant bell in his head. But Ronald is there, in front of him, burning alive, and if he could just _reach_ -

 

"I never wanted to hurt you!" Martin says, shouts, desperation breaking his voice. "Never you!"

 

Because it _was_  never supposed to be Ronald. Martin was always supposed to take the fall. But the hand around his heart, squeezing it until he can't help the tears he sheds, tells him this is happening. And that vicious little voice in his head whispers to him that this would always happen, would always be the outcome, because he's selfish and careless and can't see beyond the horizon of his own ego.

 

"Ronald, I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm so - "

 

And he watches Ronald turn to ash, keeps his gaze leveled with the one above him until those cold, unfeeling eyes fade away and there's only dusty blackness raining down upon him. It turns his hair dark, coats his skin and it _burns_ , burns hotter than even the nuclear fire Martin's come to find as a kind of comfort. It burns from the inside, lights up his chest, starts at his heart and ends at his eyes, until his world is fuzzy and out of focus, grief rich and heavy on his tongue.

 

And he can feel himself begin to fade, can feel the beginnings of a broken bond and the ripping of his soul that will leave him dead inside before outside. It tears at him, splays him open and reaches past his already broken and useless heart, grabs into his soul and _rips_ , splits it into two and leaves him with half, half that's as useless as his heart, for he's lost without it. And he hates himself for the desperation that suddenly grips him, that urges him to fight back and save himself, because he doesn't _deserve_ saving. He's let his wife die, and his partner die, and good things are so far from what he deserves. _Living_  is so far from what he deserves.

 

He's stumbling, falling forward in a parody of walking, until suddenly he can see again, can stand up without tipping over. He looks around, confused, until Jefferson emerges from the fog that has surrounded him.

 

"Jefferson, thank God," he says, relief like a bucket of ice water. "I'm not sure what's happening..."

 

As he steps forward and the fog clears, the age lines on Jefferson's face come into focus. Martin watches in increasing horror as Jefferson's hair turns grey and falls away, face wrinkling and turning splotchy.

 

"Jefferson, what - "

 

"This is your fault! If you woulda just left me back in 2016 like I wanted, none of this woulda happened!"

 

"What's happening to you?" Martin asks, though a part of him already knows. He reaches hesitant hands up to Jefferson's face, cups his jaw with a delicate reverence. "Oh, my dear boy," he says. This close, he can see the aging more rapidly, watching helplessly. He is no biologist, nor chemist. The human body is beyond him, and he can do nothing but watch as Jefferson withers away.

 

And then everything Jefferson is feeling comes over him in a wave, anger and betrayal and fear and sadness and Martin staggers a little under the sudden weight, feels his eyes sting in sympathy.

 

"Grey..." Jefferson says, mutters, though it doesn't come from the person before him. He whips around, not letting go of the aging Jefferson, to see another coming towards him, holding both hands to his side, where Martin can see a large, red stain growing.

 

"Grey, where are you?" the wounded Jefferson calls, and Martin forgets the aging one in an instant as he rushes over. He skids to a stop, hands hovering over Jefferson's hands on his wound.

 

"Grey!"

 

"Jefferson, let me have a look," Martin says, forcing his eyes away from the growing red spot and to Jefferson's face. Only, Jefferson isn't looking at him.

 

"Grey, where are you?" he repeats, more desperate this time, and he stumbles. Martin moves to catch him, but his hands pass through and Jefferson crumbles to the ground.

 

"You said - you said you wouldn't leave me," he mutters, and Martin kneels beside him, well beyond desperate and afraid.

 

"Jefferson, Jax, I'm right here, I'm right here, just let me..."

 

"You said you wouldn't," Jefferson says, eyes falling closed and breathing going slow.

 

There's tears, silent and quick, down the sides of his face, and Martin can do nothing.

 

"I'm right here," he says, tripping over the words as he chokes on his own tears, unable to prevent them from falling. "I'm right - "

 

But he can't finish the sentence, watches as the Jefferson in front of dies and the one beside him turns to dust, feels himself shatter in response, because he made a _promise_ , to himself and, more importantly, to Jefferson.

 

After Clarissa, he never thought he could love anything so much, and after Ronald, he never thought he could be whole enough to do it again, and then Jefferson put him back together without even _knowing_ , and Martin swore to himself that he would keep that boy safe, from evil and darkness and from Martin himself, because love reigns Martin above all other things, and he knew he would not survive another loss, would not be able to shoulder the guilt of another life lost in his hands. 

 

 

But then Jefferson fades, and Clarissa returns and Martin can't keep himself together after that. It's a loop, over and over the same people, different means to the same ends for each. He's shaking, crying, confused and angry and _hurting_ , hurting so deeply that it robs him of his motor functions and eventually his thoughts beyond this death he can't prevent, this death he knows is his own fault. The guilt starts in on him, eats him alive, until he's certain there will be nothing left of him.

 

And he hates himself for it, for how it's a scale, how Jefferson's deaths ruin him more than Ronald's or Clarissa's, but he can do nothing now but suffer at the hands of this cruel fate, this reality that's decided to turn his soul inside out and wring him dry of tears and emotion.

 

 

Waking back up feels like he imagines taking in air after so long of breathing water would feel like. He sputters and gasps, disorientated and confused, sits up too fast and looks around frantically. This place looks different, is clearly a cell with bars and a cold metal bed, but he still struggles to stand, to search for bodies he expects to find in the floor.

 

"Clarissa!" he calls, voice so hoarse he barely recognizes it. "Ronald!" He takes a breath, struggling to keep his fears and the sobs it threatens to bring at bay. "Jefferson!"

 

He shouts each name in turn, eyes wild as he looks for something he won't find. His memory is hazy, leaves him with more questions than answers, but he can't bring himself to focus on that. Not when - 

 

"-rtin. Grey. _Grey_!"

 

 

The next time he wakes is aboard the _Waverider_ , white metal ceiling of the medbay filling his view.

 

His throat's dry as a desert, and he feels like he's in the middle of a rough cold. He struggles to push himself to sitting, but there's suddenly hands on his shoulders, helping him up but keeping him from going too far.

Martin looks up, searching the face that belongs to those hands, those hands that he knows so, so well, and he almost can't believe it.

 

"Oh, God, Jefferson," he says, croaks, really. "Jefferson, Jefferson - " 

 

He would be embarrassed by his inability to keep himself together under normal circumstances, but every time he blinks he sees Jefferson's _body_ , still and silent and so very dead that the actual real thing sends him over the edge he was already headed towards.

 

"Grey! Grey? Jeez, man, what's wrong?"

 

"I - oh, God, Jefferson, are you alright?" Martin manages, sounding twice as rough as before, for once not bothering to care about crying in front of someone.

 

"Am _I_ alright?" Jefferson replies, indignant anger directed at the situation. "That's your question right now?"

 

Martin manages to grip at Jefferson's arms.

"Jefferson," he says, as put together as he can manage. "Are you okay?"

 

Jefferson looks at him, really looks, switches his gaze from eye to eye, and seems to find the answer to some unspoken question, because he nods.

 

"Yeah, Grey, I'm alright." He pries Martin's hands from their death hold and wraps his own hands around them, squeezes them tight and holds them against his chest. Martin can feel Jefferson's heart beating against his hand like that, and it goes a long way to soothing an ache Martin knows will never go away. 

 

"I'm alright," he repeats. "Are you?"

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 for the flip side - - >


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is basically part one but from Jax's POV. 
> 
> I mixed up the tenses a little when I started writing this, but I think I got most of the errors. Idk. It's 2am and I'm falling asleep but I wanted to get this up.
> 
> As a first work for this fandom and these characters, I sort of don't love it. It didn't turn out how I wanted it to, but you gotta start somewhere, right?

Separation left him so anxious, in the beginning. Most of it was probably carry-over from Stein, but Jax had felt it nonetheless. And the better he got to know Grey, the better he understood their powers, the more his own anxiety grew. The day he learned just how dependent Grey was on him had been a rough one for the both of them. A rough several, really.

 

Jax wanders into the medbay well after midnight the first night, stressed and hurting and so exhausted. Gideon happily provides him with a sedative and a bed, and he falls into an emotionless unconsciousness.

 

He couldn't always resist the emotional transference, though. Not that he wanted to. It's vital to the future that Grey holds out against the Russians, but Jax worries for him beyond that. He may not physically rely on Grey to stay alive, but they had become such two inseparable pieces of a puzzle, and Jax isn't sure what he would do if Grey doesn't come out of this. Wouldn't let himself even entertain the thought. Couldn't. Can't. 

 

He works with Kendra and Rip and Snart and Sara, trying to figure out a rescue, but there's 

a constant mix of emotions at the back of his mind. He tries not to focus on it, but he doesn't always get his way. Sometimes, the weight is too much - often, just the weight of Stein's regular emotions without barriers was too much. But this is an ugly mix of bright, hot anger and bone-deep, chilling fear, one so uncommon from Grey, that several times throughout the day Jax has to sit out for a while.

 

In those moments, he tries not to let his own emotions grow too strong. He can't add his own worry or fear or anger to the broiling mess in their bond. Grey's is already bad enough, there's no way Jax would make that worse. So he focuses on Grey, instead, no matter how much the incoming fear makes his stomach churn and the spikes of pain make his blood cold, and does what he can to pull them away from Grey, sending all the support and reassurance he can muster in return.

 

 

He tries to stick it out the second night, staring up at the ceiling until late, but the night terrors are much worse. Every time he falls asleep, he jerks himself awake not long after, coming out of increasingly horrible nightmares every time. It's late enough and he's tired enough to not be sure if they're fed by his own feelings or Grey's; it's likely an ugly cocktail of both.

 

So he drags himself to medbay again, and again, waking up every time feeling no more rested than if he hadn't slept at all.

 

 

He's bleary and mostly not paying attention to anything outside the Firestorm connection when Rip tells him they have a plan. It's shaky and risky and hinges on too many variables, like all their plans, and Jax jumps on it. It's like an injection of caffeine straight to his veins, and he hopes Stein can feel it, _feel_  the relief Jax does at the hope of getting him out, getting him _back_.

 

Just in case he can't, Jax has Kendra write him a message.

 

 

Breaking in isn't easy, and it isn't painless, but nothing they do ever is. Sara covers him as he runs across the field, throwing out his leg as he does, but the adrenaline covers up the bulk of the pain. _GreyGreyGrey_ runs around his head, and the need to find his other half is just nearly consuming.

 

He's itching to get away, get into the base and find Grey, get him _out_ , get him _safe_ , but he waits through Rip's quick monologue of where to go and what to do. Snart went in search of Mick and Ray, and later Jax would feel a little guilty for the complete lack concern he had for them. Sara is to go with Jax and watch his six, but Jax doesn't pay much attention after "find Martin."

 

And he does, finds him in a cell just outside Valentina's lab, a shaking, shivering Martin Stein inside on a bare metal "bed." 

 

Jax bursts in, no mind spared to the attention such a sound might garner, and rushs to Grey's side. He holds hand to his forehead, hisses at the heat there. He moves his hand to the sides of Grey's face, shaking him just a little in an attempt to wake him up.

 

"Grey, Grey, come on. We gotta go. You're safe, you're gonna be fine, but we gotta _go_. Grey."

 

But he isn't waking up, doesn't seem to make any reaction to Jax's presence. Jax shakes him a little harder.

 

"Grey, you're starting to scare me. Come on. Please. _Grey_!"

 

And then, blessedly, Grey sputters awake, sitting up with deep, shaking breaths, shouting out for his wife, for Ronnie, for Jax. 

 

The way his voice breaks over the names is enough to set Jax's heart aching and anger seething, let alone the incredibly strong, continuous stream of _panicpanicpanic_ Grey's broadcasting so loudly through the bond. 

 

"Grey, come on. I'm right here. Listen to me, Grey."

 

Jax's gentle soothing has no affect, and Grey's panic is quickly mounting. There's tears in his eyes, and Jax could've gone the rest of his life without _that_ image. Could've gone the rest of his life without hearing the way Grey's voice shatteres around his name, choking on the consonants, unknowable grief behind the call. Jax can't take it.

 

"I swear to everything I know, you better come back to me, Grey. Right now. Come on. _Please_ , Martin. Grey. _Grey_!"

 

Jax almost cries in relief when Grey's eyes find his, something like recognition in them, before he passes out again. Overcome by instant panic, Jax throws himself into the bond, searching for signs of life. He finds a weak pulse underneath where his fingertips are pressed to Grey's neck, and finds a similar weak pull from Grey's end of the bond. It's enough.

 

The probing must have triggered something in Grey's end, because where his skin's touching Jax's, it begins to glow. The urge to bond in this moment is the strongest Jax has ever felt, so he gives into it, pulling Grey out of whatever nightmare his body has been through. (Later, he would know it hadn't been his body.)

 

Getting back out of the prison is significantly easier. It feels strange, to be Firestorm without Grey's constant commentary. It feels  _wrong_ , deeply unsettling in a way that doesn't sit well with Jax at all. But no Soviet is dumb enough to stand in the way of an angry man burning nuclear fire, and they make it out to the rendezvous point in quick time. Jax is almost disappointed no one tries to stop them; it would've given him an outlet for the frustration, anger, hurt, _pain_  running through him, though he doubts he could live with himself if he had done something horrible, even to murderers and torturers.

 

 

The coming down is rough. Usually, the un-bonding is as simple as a thought, but this time it takes much more willpower. Jax isn't sure if he's trying to override Grey or himself.

 

But after a couple minutes of fighting with it, the fire disappears and Grey collapses on the bed in medical, still unconscious. It looks like he's asleep, almost, except for the way his brow keeps furrowing and the way he seems to curl towards Jax.

 

There's a hand on his shoulder, then, and Jax turns, half startled, to see Rip and Ray standing in the room with him. 

"We'll look after him," Ray promises.

Rip nods. "Get some rest."

Jax shakes his head. "You don't understand," he says, "I can't. Haven't been able to since they took him. When he's like this, it's like...it's like there's a hole in my brain and in my feelings and in everything."

Rip, thankfully, doesn't offer him pity. There is only understanding in his gaze.

"Take a sedative from Gideon, then. You'll need to be up and aware in order to help Martin when he wakes up."

Jax nods, accepts the pill Ray offers to him. He can't bring himself to leave the medbay, though, so he curls up on the sofa on the opposite wall and quickly falls into subconscious.

 

 

Jax comes around a couple hours later. The medbay is empty save for himself and Grey, and he sits up slowly. He's sore, physically and mentally, but the deep ache that has been plaguing him during Grey's absence is fading.

 

He allows himself a moment of thinking, of searching his emotions for ones that belong to himself, and to gently search into Grey's feelings, hoping for some clue as to what happened in the gulag. Instead of the soft emotions of memory, though, he finds a sharp panic and the strong feelings associated with consciousness. Jax looks over and sees Grey struggling to sit up, which has him off the couch and across the room in less than half a second.

 

He puts gentle hands on Grey's shoulders, pushing him back to laying down. He watches as Grey blinked at him, once, twice, and then sees and _feels_ the recognition and accompanying fear.

 

"Oh, God, Jefferson. Jefferson, Jefferson - "

 

Grey's voice breaks over the syllables, stuck behind silent sobs. His eyes are glassy, and Jax watches with something like horror as he sees Martin Stein cry for the first time.

 

"Grey!" Jax nearly shouts, mostly in shock. "Grey?" Panic sets it, and he worries that there's some injury Gideon didn't catch. "Jeez, man, what's wrong?" Jax asks, hands hovering above Grey, ready to act. On _what,_ he doesn't know.

 

Martin takes a wheezing breath, and Jax is really starting to be concerned. He's continuously bombarded by fear and guilt and frustration and grief so strong it makes his knees weak, but he _doesn't_   _know_ what's wrong, what has caused them.

 

"I - " Grey tries, stuttering over his own emotions. "Oh, God, Jefferson, are you alright?"

 

Jax barely holds back a scoff. Typical of Grey to be concerned about everyone but himself. But he can't help his curious confusion for why Grey is so worried about _him_. He remembers, then, waking Grey for that brief moment in the cell, and the memory of the way he called out for Clarissa and Ronnie and _Jax_  come back to him (a memory Jax is sure will not fade for a long, _long_ time).

 

"Am _I_ alright? That's your question right now?" Jax replies, can't help the hints of anger in his tone. If, for _once_  in his life, Grey could worry about himself first, Jax's life would probably be much less stressful. Let alone less _emotional_.

 

Grey's arms come up off the table, then, and he's gripping at Jax's arms, a tight, vice grip that Jax knows will leave slight bruises. He doesn't have the heart to say anything, though. There's a wild kind of glint to Grey's eyes, the kind that comes with knowing so much suffering and loss, of losing _everything_ in a way Jax can't understand.

 

"Jefferson," he says, seriousness heavy in his tone. "Are you okay?"

 

It sounds less like a question and more like a demand. Jax searches his face, flickes his gaze from eye to eye, looking for any clue as to where all this is coming from. He has never seen Grey so shaken before, and it leaves him feeling unsettled in a strange way. Like something in the universe itself is slightly off-tilt, like he's seeing something he never should have seen in the first place.

 

"Yeah, Grey," he says when he realizes it has probably been too long. "I'm alright."

 

And he is, really. Now, anyway. It's still a little odd, the connection. Having his own feelings so dependant on someone else's, having the majority of his _life_  so dependant on someone else. The comparison of _during_ and _after_  throws in sharp relief the depth of the reliance Jax has on Grey, and if his reaction is anything to go by, Grey has on Jax.

 

Jax covers Grey's hands in his own, pulls them off his arms but holds onto them, wrapping them between his own hands as if he can protect him from the outside. Or, even, the inside. 

 

He's reluctant to let Grey go, squeezes his hands and holds them to his chest, feels his heart beat against their hands. There's so much that Grey worries about, so much that he suffers over, and Jax wonders how often someone has worried over him.

 

"Are you?" he asks, and part of him doesn't expect an answer. But the other part is waiting, needing a response to soothe his own worry, his own ache at such a close call.

 

Grey closes his eyes, and Jax already knows what the answer is, whether or not Grey decides to tell the truth.

 

"No," he says, and Jax is momentarily glad he chose the truth. "But I will be."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potentially a third part sometime in the future. Also plenty more of them from me in the works, with (hopefully) better writing and development as I get to know these guys.

**Author's Note:**

> There's gonna be a part from jax's pov and then maybe a third part but idk


End file.
